Work continues on disc golf course

Delays continue to dog Carthage's new disc golf course in Kellogg Lake Park, but the city is preparing for the installation as best it can.

John Hacker

Delays continue to dog Carthage's new disc golf course in Kellogg Lake Park, but the city is preparing for the installation as best it can.

Carthage Parks Director Alan Bull was at the park on Tuesday placing the metal sleeves that will hold the baskets that will make up the “holes” in the course and pouring the concrete to hold those sleeves in place. Bull said crews will also be working this week to prepare concrete “tee boxes” where players will launch their first shots at each hole.

Bull said the contractor making the baskets has had difficulties getting them done, so delivery of the baskets won't happen until next week at the earliest.

With the work the parks department is doing this week to build the tee boxes and install the sleeves, setting up the course should take a few hours once the baskets are delivered, Bull said.The city approved a $4,680 bid from Russell Burns, a disc golf course designer from Springfield, to build the metal baskets and posts and design the course.

Plans are for 12 baskets, or holes, to be installed now, with an option to expand to 18 holes later. An 18-hole course, which is normal on most courses, would have cost $6,840, which was more than the $6,000 the city budgeted for the project.

The city plans to expand the course to 18 holes at a later date.

Disc golf involves players throwing discs that look like Frisbees, but are much denser and somewhat smaller and heavier, at baskets on a prescribed course. Steel baskets on metal posts are surrounded with chains that are designed to catch a disc.

The goal is the same as golf — get the disc into the basket with the fewest throws. Lowest score wins.Bull said the Kellogg Lake course, which was designed by the contractor building the baskets, puts holes along the lake and in the grassy areas around the slough and along the river.